Grambling football players Naquan Smith (in blue) and Jonathan Williams (orange) talk as a group of students hold a campus demonstration to show their support for the team last month.

Written by

Dr. Frank Pogue

The recent boycott by our student athletes brought national, and international, attention to the piney woods of Grambling State University.

There was initial shock that a school with our football pedigree could ever forfeit a game, as we did recently when we did not have enough football players to field a team against Jackson State University. I have been saying this for a long time, to anyone who would listen, but the student protest brought to light the fact that our finances are stretched so thin that the basics are no longer guaranteed.